Major Policy Research Articles

Locus of Control, Social Capital and Transport Poverty1*

Transport poverty is a major public policy issue in many countries. However, evidence on the factors that influence transport poverty is relatively scant. We contribute to the debate on the factors that influence transport poverty by being the first to examine how locus of control (LoC) influences transport poverty. Using 15 waves of panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, we find evidence to suggest that LoC influences transport poverty. Specifically, we find that being more internal on LoC is associated with a lower probability of being transport poor. This finding is robust to a suite of sensitivity and robustness checks, including different constructs of transport poverty, alternative measures of LoC, the use of an out‐of‐sample supplementary dataset and different estimation approaches. We find that social capital is an important factor that mediates the relationship between LoC and transport poverty.

Mapping critical minerals projects and their intersection with Indigenous peoples' land rights in Australia

Vastly increased quantities of minerals and metals are needed to scale up renewable energy technologies. Indigenous peoples globally are voicing concerns about how this will affect the speed and scale of mining and renewable energy development on their lands and territories. In this paper, we delineate areas of Australia where Indigenous peoples' interests in land are formally recognised under legislation. These areas are overlayed with critical minerals project information to calculate intersections across 14 commodities. Our results show that 57.8 % of critical minerals projects are located where Indigenous peoples have a right to negotiate. Including native title claims, these rights are available for 79.2 % of critical minerals projects. We argue that critical minerals policies must consider Indigenous peoples' rights and interests in land upfront – not as an afterthought. To date, Indigenous peoples have not shared equitably in the wealth generated by mining Australia's mineral endowment. Inequitable outcomes will continue without major policy reform.

Policy Solutions: Policy, not politics

The 2024 presidential election features a rematch from four years ago: President Biden and former President Trump. While all presidential elections matter, columnist Jonathan E. Collins argues that this election is especially pivotal to K-12 education policy. Collins poses major education policy questions that we should be asking heading into the upcoming election.

Strategy Is Only Partly an Illusion: “Relative Foresight” as an Objective Standard for Evaluating Foreign Policy Competence

Abstract Foreign policymakers must grapple with complexity, uncertainty, and subjectivity. These challenges raise the possibility that “strategy is an illusion”: that there is no reliable method for assessing skill at managing international politics. By contrast, we show that researchers can objectively evaluate a critical component of foreign policy competence using a standard we call “relative foresight,” defined as decision-makers’ ability to anticipate consequences of their choices as compared to alternative views based on similar information. Relative foresight can be measured without relying on value judgments or subjective probabilities. By contrast, other common frameworks for gauging foreign policy competence, such as comparing leaders’ behavior to the rational actor model or assessing procedural rationality, almost always leave room for reasonable disagreement. We demonstrate that relative foresight provides a useful tool for evaluating major foreign policy choices through case studies of Barack Obama’s decisions regarding the Afghan Surge and the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. Our framework has broad implications for research on normative, prescriptive, and descriptive dimensions of foreign policy analysis.

Prevalence and predictors of prenatal depression during the COVID-19 pandemic: A multistage observational study in Beijing, China.

While growing psychological health issues among pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic have been clearly validated, most research was conducted in countries with relatively lax quarantine measures. This study aimed to compare the prevalence of prenatal depression among pre-, peak-, and post-COVID-19 in Beijing, the region with a stringent response policy in China. We also explore predictors of prenatal depression throughout the outbreak. We investigated prenatal depression among 742 pregnant women who received antenatal checkups in Beijing from March 28, 2019 to May 07, 2021 using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and associative demographic, pregnancy-related, and psychosocial characteristics were measured. The phase was divided into pre-, peak-, and post-COVID-19 in light of the trajectory of COVID-19. Pearson's Chi-square test was used after the examination of confounders homogeneity. The bivariable and multivariable logistic regression was conducted to explore predictors. The pooled prevalence of prenatal depression was 11.9% throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Rates at different phases were 10.6%, 15.2%, and 11.1% respectively and no significant difference was observed. Multivariable logistic regression revealed that history of mental illness, number of boy-preference from both pregnant women and husband's family, social support, occupation, and living space were independent predictors of prenatal depression in Beijing. Our data suggested that the impact of this pandemic on prenatal depression in Beijing appears to be not significant, which will strengthen confidence in adhering to current policy for decision-makers and provide important guidance for the development of major outbreak control and management policies in the future. Our findings may also provide a more efficient measure to identify high-risk pregnant women for professionals and help raise gender equity awareness of pregnant women and their husbands' families. Future studies should focus on the value of targeted care and family relations on the mental health of pregnant women.

Provision of educational psychological services under a high inflationary environment in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe

The study employed a qualitative research approach using a phenomenological research design since the lived experiences of educational psychologists in Masvingo Province were scrutinized with the intention of establishing the extent to which educational psychologists matched the laid down specifications pertaining to their professional operations during a high inflationary environment. Three males and two females were purposely selected and in-depth interviews were utilized. Four themes emerged from the study: (a) vital roles, successful, and unsuccessful experiences, (b) diverse views on major policy documents, (c) barriers in rendering support services, and (d) perceived solutions. Results indicated that policy documents are outdated and need revision. Human and material resources were viewed a barriers to performance and perceived solutions included multidisciplinary team work, decentralization and increasing the number of psychologists, training of psychologists and reduced continuous professional development points. Educational psychologists focused more on diagnostic and behavioral consultations in urban schools. They distributed schools in urban areas depending on psychologists’ place of residences. Rural schools were minimally assessed with little provision of intervention, prevention, and health promotion services. The results provide important implications for resource provision and policy formulation.

Quantifying the reduction in coal and increase in renewables in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries: Proposal for a coal-renewable energy index and map

Reducing coal use and increasing renewable energy use are two major policies that have been recommended in many countries and regions to address climate change. However, the progress toward meeting these policy goals is unclear. Therefore, this study proposes the “C–R map”, which is a correlation map between the share of coal-fired plants and renewable energy in terms of annual consumption, and the “CR index”, which is an index composed of the above two indicators. The proposed methods objectively visualise and quantitatively analyse statistical data on global climate change associated with “reducing coal and increasing renewables”, whose trends or tendencies could only be obtained through fragmented statistical data and documents. Using the proposed C–R map and CR index, an international comparative analysis was conducted on the share of coal and renewables from 1990 to 2020 in 37 Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development member countries. The results quantitatively showed that 31 member countries clearly exhibited a trend of decreasing their share of coal and increasing their share of renewables, while only five countries, i.e. Chile, Turkey, Mexico, Japan, and Korea, showed unique and inconsistent trends relative to that of the other member countries. By using the highly transparent and simple map and index proposed here based on published statistical information and objective methods, the global trend of “reducing coal and increasing renewables” can be quantitatively visualised in graphs and numerical values, which are easily understood and interpretable, even for laymen.

Study on the application of the intelligence teaching ecology based on the 5G blended campus network technology

Our society is being transformed by the technology emergence and the industrial revolution. The advances in the internet and artificial intelligence are reshaping the means of education, profoundly changing the ways of teaching and learning. This paper studies the pattern of how the new 5th generation blended campus network is applied to aid the new generation of intelligence teaching. This pattern is the implementation of national major policies and the measure of cultivating people. This paper introduces a new model for the intelligence teaching system. Based on the new model, distance interaction teaching system, VR practicing teaching system, intelligence testing system, and higher education intelligence decision system are developed. This model can be the basis of the informatization of future education.

Research on the Identification of Rural Revitalization Potential and Precise Financial Support in Poverty-Stricken Areas

Research on the Identification of Rural Revitalization Potential and Precise Financial Support in Poverty-Stricken Areas

Iran - US Hostage Crisis

This paper is regarding the Iran hostage crisis which was the boiling point of historical tensions between Iran and the U.S. and the backstory to understand this international crisis is that it came into light during the Iranian Revolution. This act wasn’t something that was planned overnight, the actions of the students and the protestors came from a deep resentment towards the U.S. who they believed were interfering in Iranian affairs for decades then, which eventually led to the Iranian revolution and then revoked the Iran hostage crisis. The hostage situation played as a major foreign policy change, negotiations were stalled and ties between the U.S. and Iran were being severed. Jimmy Carter, in all his power, imposed sanctions and attempted a rescue mission which had failed but that didn’t stop him from fighting for his citizens.

‘It's Time to Make Your Way Home’: Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Multicultural Policies in Australia

ABSTRACT Governments around the world acted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic through lockdowns and border closures that had specific impacts on temporary residents (migrants, asylum seekers and refugees). In Australia, there were differential responses across states and territories, and a critical distinction made at Federal government level between permanent residents and citizens as compared to temporary migrants. The result has been the continued Othering of certain groups of Australians of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds as well as migrants and refugees on the basis of racial characteristics and visa status. This paper will consider the period where arguably multicultural policies were ‘on hold’ by investigating the timeline leading up to major policy decisions and the immediate and longer-term after-effects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Arguably the way in which multicultural communities were treated has shown the superficial nature of multicultural policies in Australia and the lack of more solid foundations in support of what now demographically constitutes a majority of the country's population. Drawing on secondary data analysis, the paper will outline the distance these actions have put between political leaders and multicultural communities, and queries the implications for a sustained commitment to multicultural policies in an era of temporary migration.

Unveiling Economic Priorities: Highlights of Union Budget 2023-24

This research abstract provides an overview of the key highlights and priorities outlined in the Union Budget for the fiscal year 2023-24. The budget, a crucial document shaping the economic direction of the nation, reflects the government's strategies to address key challenges and foster sustainable growth. This abstract encapsulates the major themes, allocations, and policy directions embedded in the Union Budget, providing insights into the economic roadmap for the upcoming financial year. This research abstract aims to serve as a concise guide to the primary areas of focus and policy directions articulated in the Union Budget 2023-24. It invites readers to gain a comprehensive understanding of the government's economic vision and strategies through a condensed yet informative overview of the budget's key highlights.

Leveraging intellectual property: The value of harmonized enforcement regimes

This paper examines the role of intellectual property (IP) law as a determinant for external debt financing of innovative firms. For identification, we exploit exogenous variation in patent right enforcement arising from the 2004 EU Enforcement Directive. This major policy reform strengthened IP rights and, thus, raised patent owners' asset position. We find that patenting firms significantly increase their use of debt and benefit from lower interest rates in response to the amendment, especially if they own valuable patent portfolios. These effects are most pronounced for relatively small and financially constrained firms, emphasizing the importance of the legal framework in fostering debt financing activities of innovation-oriented firms.

Secure communities as immigration enforcement: How secure is the child care market?

Immigrants comprise nearly 20% of the child care workforce in the U.S. This paper studies the impact of a major immigration enforcement policy, Secure Communities (SC), on the structure and functioning of the child care market. Relying on the staggered introduction of SC across counties between 2008 and 2014, we find that the program reduced children’s participation in center-based child care programs. The estimated reductions are substantially larger among advantaged children and in jurisdictions with a greater fraction of undocumented individuals. We also find that SC reduced the equilibrium supply and wages of immigrant and native workers in the center-based sector as well as the number of center-based facilities. There is no compensating increase in the home-based or private household sectors. Our findings suggest that immigrants and natives are likely to be complements in child care service production.

The Evolution of Crisis Frames in the European Commission’s Institutional Communication (2003–2022)

Historical accounts of the EU recurrently turn to crisis as a periodizing or structuring concept, reflecting the observation made by scholars that crisis has become a permanent feature of the social construction of our social and political reality. The concept of crisis can also be exploited for strategic purposes by political actors pursuing various policy agendas. Our article analyzes the discursive uses of crises by one of the central institutions of the EU, the European Commission, based on a corpus of press releases that referred to crisis (<em>N = </em>4,414) going back two decades (2003–2022). Thus, our article examines crisis as a political language and its discursive uses. We ask: (a) how salient is the topic of “crisis” in the European Commission’s communication; (b) what are the main domains in which the crisis frame has been activated, from geographical scope to policy areas; (c) how did the deployment of crisis frames change in time along major policy areas like economy, migration, or climate change; and (d) in what terms has the crisis-frame been activated, and how does crisis word use vary by region and policy area. Methodologically, we pursue these research questions using text-as-data methods, combining natural language processing tools for identifying geographical scopes, actors, and policy areas with corpus methods for identifying keywords and collocates and manually coding the latter, relying on qualitative and quantitative reasoning. Our research contributes to understanding the dynamics of EU policy framing in times of crisis.

Semiconductor Price Index Predicting Based on a Novel Improved AdaBoost Feature-Weighted Combination Model

The semiconductor price index serves as a vital metric for assessing technological developments and related market trends. Establishing a more accurate forecasting model for the semiconductor price index is of significant importance for analyzing the industry’s trends and market directions. In this paper, a novel framework for semiconductor price index forecasting is proposed. In addition to traditional financial data, the study introduces search engine data (Google Trends) representing investor attention, and introduces text information extracted from online news headlines reflecting major market events and government policies as independent variables. Used to predict the dependent variable: The PHLX Semiconductor Sector (SOX). First, the XGBoost model is employed to compute the importance scores of each feature. Then, a feature weight coefficient indicator is constructed based on these importance scores to calculate the weight coefficient indicator values for each feature. These indicator values are then used to weight the kernel function of Support Vector Regression (SVR), resulting in weighted Support Vector Regression (WSVR). Finally, WSVR is utilized as the base learner for Adaptive Boosting (AdaBoost), yielding the XGBoost–WSVR–AdaBoost model based on feature weighting. The proposed model outperforms AdaBoost, RNN, ERT, LSTM, and other models in terms of Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) and goodness-of-fit (R2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${R}^{2}$$\\end{document}). It also exhibits superior predictive performance compared to models in ablation experiments, and the introduction of text data or Google trends further improves the prediction performance of the model. In conclusion, the improved AdaBoost feature-weighted combination model proposed in this study offers a more accurate prediction for semiconductor price index.

“I Have Concluded That the US Government Will Adopt a New Focus in Its Policies Towards the Government of South Africa.” President Jimmy Carter and Apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT This article examines the shift in the bilateral relationship between the United States and South Africa that occurred during the period of the Carter administration. The White House, guided primarily by Carter’s deep commitment to humanitarian principles made a progressive transformation of South African society and the ending of racial discrimination a major foreign policy objective. Both publicly and privately the Carter administration took a tough stance against Pretoria including supporting a mandatory UN arms embargo. Ultimately, however, Carter failed in his goal of dismantling apartheid and his opposition to commercial sanctions led to a deepening of economic ties between Washington and Pretoria. His administration was also unable to stop South Africa from joining the nuclear club.

A new measure of US public agency policy discretion

Abstract The US bureaucracy routinely issues major public policy decisions that affect Americans’ lives. Government agency leaders make those decisions based on a subjective understanding of their agency’s available policy discretion. Over time, discretion has become a prominent theoretical construct in the bureaucratic politics and public administration literature, but it is rarely measured directly. In this article, we create a new measure of agency policy discretion. We draw on research suggesting that discretion is derived from the bureaucracy’s key political principals: the elected executive, legislators, and interest groups. We use data from the American State Administrators Project and trigonometry to calculate the discretion area scores for 8,955 state agencies between 1978 and 2018. We then evaluate the measure through a series of construct validation assessments. The article offers an innovative and generalizable way to operationalize discretion that will advance future scholarship in organizational behavior, public administration, and bureaucratic decision-making.

India in 2023

In 2023, India experienced another year of strong economic growth; it was the fastest- growing economy in the world. However, as before, this growth was accompanied by growing unemployment and inequality between urban and rural regions. Furthermore, the year was marked yet again by significant declines in the quality of democracy as the parliament was increasingly marginalized, a new law effectively handed control of the Election Commission of India to the incumbent government, and laws and government actions curbed civil liberties and human rights. One major positive development was the passage of a law reserving seats for women in the directly elected national and state assemblies. India successfully hosted its first G20 summit but also dealt with major foreign policy issues, including increasing rivalry with China for regional influence, accusations of assassination attempts by its intelligence agencies in friendly countries, and the ongoing Israel–Palestine conflict. Finally, 2023 saw the BJP claim dominant electoral victories in four out of nine states, putting it in government in 16 of the 28 Indian states.

Turbulente Zeiten für Betriebe: Ukrainekrieg und 12-Euro-Mindestlohn

Abstract The year 2022 was characterised by extraordinary social and economic pressures. Russia’s war against Ukraine led to major energy policy and economic upheaval, high inflation and the challenge of taking in refugees from Ukraine. At the same time, the statutory minimum wage was increased twice in 2022 from 9.82 € to 10.45 € in July and to 12 € per hour in October. With regard to this significant increase in a difficult economic environment, many questions arise: How many and which firms were affected by the minimum wage increases in 2022? How severely were these establishments affected by the war in Ukraine? What are the challenges they are currently facing?